Jonathan Mandell

“McNeal” is a great showcase for Robert Downey Jr., making his Broadway debut as the novelist Jacob McNeal, who is unraveling just at the moment of his greatest acclaim. But Downey also seems a vehicle by which playwright Ayad Akhtar attempts to address some age-old questions about the creative process, with a new twist:

The problem is not that the story is familiar, although in many ways it is; the overbearing stage mother overseeing dated routines (Madame Rose in “Gypsy,” anyone?) It’s that Butterworth’s three previous productions were so memorable. “The Hills of California” doesn’t have a “once-in-a-lifetime” performance like Mark Rylance’s in “Jerusalem” (2011.) “The Ferryman,” which won the Tony for Best Play in 2019, offered not just an epic connection to the real-life Troubles in Belfast; it featured a live baby, bunny, and goose.

This mix works best when past and present exist side by side (by side), such as when Danny Hayward performs the song “Wilkommen” from “Cabaret.” He is first an elegant Joel Grey in 1966 (“You would adore/Our catchy score/and beg for more”), then strips off his tuxedo to portray Alan Cumming in suspenders and black cap (“My show was dark/As a black hearse/But scream in pain/Eddie Redmayne/Is even worse”), then strips even further and sticks on a stupid party hat and yellow kitchen gloves (“I’m Eddie Redmayne/And I have no charm/I will repulse you/Sniff my underarm – and lick it.”) As in most of the funniest parodies in the show, it’s the costumes designed by Dustin Cross and wigs by Ian Joseph most likely to provoke a laugh-out-loud reaction.

It shouldn’t be a terrible surprise that Farrow and LuPone, the ultimate pros with a combined total of 117 years experience as professional performers, keep our attention at all times. It may well be that our appreciation comes as much from memories of their great roles from the past, as from these characters, who are neither greatly nuanced, nor roll-on-the-floor hilarious, although they have their moments. It seems fitting that Bob Crowley’s set of an airy Iowa house feels unfinished, like an outline of a house, or one under construction.

“Once Upon A Mattress” opened tonight for its third turn on Broadway, with Sutton Foster’s performance as Princess Winnifred the Woebegone the same goofy and intense workout that proved a draw earlier this year in a two-week run of the 1959 musical comedy as part of the Encores! concert series at New York City Center. The production, which has replaced four of the eight principal cast members, is otherwise largely unchanged now that it has transferred to the Hudson Theater. It is still tuneful, fun, well-sung. But it plays differently for me now. On Broadway, it feels like high school.

The playwright can’t seem to decide whether “The Meeting: The Interpreter” is about the meeting or about the life-story of the interpreter (hence the awkward title) – or for that matter about human rights abuses in Russia, or about the relationship between the interpreter and the journalist, or about the continuing threat to American democracy. She doesn’t even seem sure it should be a play: “The Meeting: The Interpreter” ends with an “Epilogue” — words projected onto a screen, some twenty paragraphs’ worth – summing up the Mueller Report (which wasn’t mentioned at all on stage), as well as reports from the House Intelligence Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee (without mentioning the Trump Tower meeting and how it figures in), and telling us at length what’s happened to some of the people involved (“Donald Trump was elected President of the United States in 2016…”)

This twist apparently disturbs me more than other theatergoers, even those who agree it is misguided. But to me it fits into a pattern I’ve noticed among emerging playwrights that arguably reflects the pernicious influence of film and TV. The play is full of tension, and twists, in a way that reminded me of several plays over the past few years – such as Small Engine Repair by John Pollano, Office Hour by Julia Cho, Blackbird by David Harrower – that offered shock for shock’s sake. Ironically, the effect of “Job” on the audience feels analogous to something that Loyd warns happens to people who spend too much time with their smart phones — the “slow drip of dopamine” that stimulates them with sensation but stops them from thinking.

I’m not sure whether I’ve done justice to these scenes or, conversely, told you too much. For what it’s worth, the cast is game, and the design is meticulous — right down to those yellow wristbands.

“N/A” may not be a political play for the ages. As the playwright himself acknowledges, it’s only “lightly imagined.” It doesn’t quite go anywhere. The ending feels almost arbitrary. Nothing is really resolved. But isn’t that exactly where we are right now?

Samm-Art Williams was born in Burgaw, North Carolina seventy-eight years ago, and died in that same small rural town last month; he liked to tell people he was “just a country boy.” Actually, though, in between his birth and his death, Williams lived large in the big city – an actor in Hollywood movies, executive producer of the hit TV series “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” and a playwright who was best-known for “Home,” which was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Play after it transferred from The Negro Ensemble Company to Broadway in 1980. “Home,” a story about a son of the South who not-so-briefly loses his way, is opening tonight on Broadway in a revival directed by Kenny Leon; Williams died four days before its first preview.

I gained a whole new understanding of “The Three Little Piggies” at the end of Dave Malloy’s latest sing-through musical theater piece, which has a lively score and a gifted cast, but largely falls short of its effort — seemingly inspired by Sondheim’s approach in “Into The Woods” — to say something significant about life during the pandemic. Still, the ending is a revelation.

Taube eventually takes up as a personal mission to contact and convince other relatives, as it turns out, to little avail. The scenes with these others, in avoidance or in denial, are among the most difficult – until the end, when the show moves from this album, to a different set of photographs. These are among the very few taken of the Jews at the camp, and includes testimony by one of the survivors who is pictured in one of them, alongside her family members who did not survive. It is as if Moisés Kaufman, who is the son of Holocaust survivors, and his co-writer Amanda Gronich, shared some of the initial concerns of the Holocaust museum staff: A play about the Holocaust, even one that focuses on its perpetrators, cannot completely exclude its victims.

There is near total overlap with the queer love story, involving Ben Cook as Carl, Henry’s small town friend and first love; Gaby Diaz as Shelby, Carl’s first love; and Ahmad Simmons as Douglas, Henry’s big-city mature love. If love suffuses the tale, it is as much about risk, adventure, loss and grief. This overwhelming jumble of emotions is expressed through an impressive synthesis of classical, modern and street choreography, accompanying an eclectic and pleasing mix of orchestral music, jazz, electronica, indie folk-rock – and sounds in-between.

“Mother Play” is not as great as plays Paula Vogel has written in the past – perhaps not as great as she might be able to make it in time – but under Tina Landau’s direction, it is a mesmerizing production, albeit not always easy to watch. That’s not only because of the fully-invested acting, but also because of the fully-infested sets (thanks to projection designer Shawn Duan.)

The Lincoln Center “Uncle Vanya,” which is the 11th production of the play on Broadway, doesn’t completely solve the central difficulties of staging it. The production still requires patience; there’s no concession to the Tik-Tok generation. And while Schreck’s translation does bring out the humor, and gets rid of the stuffiness, it introduces potential problems of its own. Still, under Lila Neugebauer’s direction, the performances of the nine-member cast do click often enough to reward those of us who are patient.

The episodic adventures should be delightful, but they are instead removed and remote, for a compound of reasons. Ruhl’s script relies on narration rather than dialogue (of which there is admittedly relatively little in Woolf’s novel.) Six of the cast members (all but Mac) spend most of their time not as characters but as chorus members. They divvy up their exposition, often one single line after another. And they are often huddled together on a stage that is essentially bare – which results in a vastness that swallows up their lines.

“Patriots” ultimately feels like a play for a different time and a different place. It is opening at the crowded end of a busy Broadway season, and if New York theatergoers are going to be offered a play about Russia that involves Vladimir Putin, why a British play about a Russian oligarch whose heyday was in the 1990s, with most of the depicted events having occurred decades ago? We don’t get enough of a background or perspective on what much of the world (including Americans) view as an urgent current moment — Putin’s continuing war on Ukraine. If it’s true, as the play indicates, that Putin began his reign making overtures to the West — we’re told he even wanted Russia to become a member nation of NATO — then what happened? We’re left in the dark. We can guess; try to read between the lines, do some research afterwards on our own. Or if we want a more complete picture from Peter Morgan, we can wait to see if he turns the story into another Netflix series.

So, ok, I won’t call “The Heart of Rock and Roll” poppy. If not poppy, it’s certainly predictable, a dose of 1980s nostalgia with a by-the-numbers plot that would not be out of place in a conventional 1950s musical comedy. But for what it is, the show has its moments. Cott gives another reliable central performance, surrounded by stand-out supporting players. Lorin Latarro’s choreography rocks, and hops, and sometimes completely flips (there are acrobatic dancers in the ensemble.) In between the catchy tunes, eye-rolling contrivance battles it out with cleverness; sometimes, clever wins.

Luckily there are two performances that do more than their share in trying to right the imbalance. Bebe Neuwirth is exquisite as Fraulein Schneider, the landlady of the boarding house where Clifford rents a room; she brings attention to songs that are not normally among the most memorable in the musical – “So What” and “What Would You Do,” — which drive home the real-life despair and high stakes then facing people in Germany. Her performance is matched by Steven Skybell, as Herr Schultz, one of her boarders. The two older characters gently fall in love, accompanied by some lovely melodies, “It Couldn’t Please Me More,” and “Married.” In the most effective scene in which the Emcee participates:, he wraps a wine glass in a napkin and steps on it – central to the traditional Jewish marriage ritual – but it’s accompanied not by hurrahs, but by a loud boom, darkness, the sound of glass shattering, and the lights up on a fluttering of what might literally be stage confetti, but hits like a preview of Kristallnacht.

Watching this play by David Adjmi made me think of the last (and possibly the only other) play I’ve seen that was set in a recording studio, “Million Dollar Quartet,” not because there were any similarities between the two, but precisely because their differences made me realize how I could be impressed by the writing and acting in “Stereophonic” and still be disappointed by it.

If Dixon and Bean give swoon-worthy interpretations of some of Keys’ catchiest melodies, Kecia Lewis is on fire in Keys’ most moving and intense tune, “Perfect Way To Die.” The song is about a woman whose son has been shot dead. Nobody is shot dead in “Hell’s Kitchen.” There’s no indication that Miss Liza Jane had a son who was killed. Miss Jane sings the song after Ali enters the Ellington room and tells her she is too angry to play piano right now. In the scene right before, the police have a (somewhat murky) encounter with Knuck, possibly instigated by Jersey, which led to his arrest. Miss Liza Jane excoriates her student: “Then why the hell are you in here and not out there. ¥ou were in pain. That pain led you here. Listen to that pain. Do something with it.” If the lyrics don’t correspond to the situation of the scene, the emotions are deeply aligned and easily shared by the audience. The same could be said about much of “Hell’s Kitchen.”

But much has changed in “Suffs,” almost all for the better: The show is more streamlined, more focused. At the same time, with the transfer to Broadway, my assessment has changed somewhat. “Suffs” on Broadway is likely to be sought out more for its inspiration and enlightenment than its entertainment.

The eight members of the cast give their most absorbing performances as the 18th century characters. Rodrigo Muñoz’s authentic-looking costumes – surely better than Good Company could afford – help make the scenes at Monticello feel you-are-there real, not a rehearsal. The performers’ many interactions as the present-day members of the troupe (too minor to be considered full-fledged subplots) are less interesting as a whole.

What I mean is: The cast as a whole can sing to the rafters and dance like the dickens, but their belting started to feel like an American Idol competition, and some of the dance numbers seemed so frenzied that at times they gave off an aura of desperation. This unmodulated, artificial-feeling fervor made me wonder whether there were too many cities on their 13-city pre-Broadway tour, leading the cast to overcompensate in order to stave off fatigue. Or had director Schele Williams simply decided that entertainment is best served with an overdose of adrenaline?

In any case, the show’s oft-mentioned fusion of humanity with machinery suddenly struck me as a clarifying metaphor for my mixed reaction to “Lempicka,” which opened on Broadway tonight at the Longacre. Carson Kreitzer, who conceived of the musical and co-wrote the libretto with Matt Gould, has created some artful lyrics for Gould’s music. Director Rachel Chavkin oversees some precisely calibrated moments. Naturally gifted cast members give polished performances, most notably Eden Espinosa in the title role, and especially Amber Iman as Rafaela. But the songs and scenes ultimately add up to an almost mechanical-feeling sameness, loud and overwhelming.